Michael MuchmorePlurk.comThis new twist on microblogging, which puts your updates into a horizontal timeline, has a nicer interface than Twitter's, is more fun, and handles images and video well. But until Plurk gets SMS text-entry capability, it won't be a real threat to the more established player.

This new twist on microblogging, which puts your updates into a horizontal timeline, has a nicer interface than Twitter's, is more fun, and handles images and video well. But until Plurk gets SMS text-entry capability, it won't be a real threat to the more established player.

Plurk at Work

Instead of just asking, "What are you doing?" as Twitter does, Plurk gives you a drop-down list of verb options, or what the service calls qualifiers, which consist of your nickname followed by one of the verbs loves, likes, shares, gives, hates, wants, wishes, has, will, asks, was, feels, thinks, says, and iswhich covers most of what you yearn to communicate. As with other services, you have 140 characters to express your yearningwhich leads me to believe that the site will be adding SMS text capability, though I didn't get a response about that from the company. Alternatively, you can post comments freestyle (plurk), without a preselected verb. Another Plurk perk lets you enter smileys in your statements, so you can express yourself in ways mere words cannot :-P.

Each entry (called a plurk) takes up only one line and expands when you hover the mouse over it, unless the entry is very short. Clicking on a plurk's text drops down a comment window for responses. You can limit the display to show strictly your own plurks, yours and your friends', or just private plurks. By default, your entries will be visible to the whole world. Privacy options let you change this to making what you post visible to just you, a friend, or a clique (a group of friends you create). You'll also find an in-between choice, on the privacy settings page, that lets friends and friends of friends view your plurks.

Plurk's horizontal timeline shows the date and time along the bottom as well as posts by you and plurkers you're following. It also lets you drag the comment area back and forth (or do the same using your mouse's scroll wheel) to go back and forward in time. Clicking on a verb in your timeline will gray out posts that don't use it. In displaying posts, Plurk shares the same problem as a number of microblogs, including Twitter: You're likely to see a variety of languages in the public posts, and there's no way to filter out languages you don't want.

When you plurk an image or videowhich you can easily do by putting a link to content from YouTube, TinyPic, ImageShack, Flickr, or Photobucket into your text-entry boxa thumbnail of it will appear in the timeline entry automagicallya nice touch that you'll also find in Pownce but not Twitter.Next: Plurk's Perks

Plurk.com

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Bottom Line: This new twist on microblogging, which puts your updates into a horizontal timeline, has a nicer interface than Twitter's, is more fun, and handles images and video well. But until Plurk gets SMS text-entry capability, it won't be a real threat to the more established player.

Michael Muchmore is PC Magazine’s lead analyst for software and Web applications. A native New Yorker, he has at various times headed up PC Magazine’s coverage of Web development, enterprise software, and display technologies. Michael cowrote one of the first overviews of Web Services for a general audience. Before that he worked on PC Magazine’s Solutions section, which covered programming techniques as well as tips on using popular office software. Most recently he covered services and software for ExtremeTech.com.
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